The Social Policy of Italian Fascism and the International Labour Organization

The article traces Fascist Italy’s participation in the International Labour Organization. The Italian presence was marked both by tensions—originating mainly from the removal of trade union freedom imposed by Mussolini’s regime—and by profound convergences. The representatives of the regime actively contributed to the functioning of a transnational circuit of analysis and legislation in the field of labor and social policies embodied in the ILO. Paradoxically, given Fascist opposition to the League of Nations system to which the ILO belonged, the regime’s engagement was determined not only by pragmatic interests but also by the belief, shared by the Italian authorities and the organization’s governing body, that economic liberalism was in decline and that a commitment was needed to develop new models for regulating the economy and labor.